From the window I could see the distant road, its amber ribbon breaking over the slope of green hills. There was a long string of people traveling along it, and I knew they were pilgrims setting off to see the relics in a nearby monastery.
Ursula clutched my arm before pulling me away from the window. “You spend much time at this view, husband. What of court? You have not been there in many weeks, almost a month. Will you not be missed? Does not the king require you?”
I patted her hand before I disengaged from her. “I am not missed by the king, for he has many ushers and grooms to attend to him, men who do not have papist sympathies.”
She glanced toward the door, a habit we of a sudden cultivated, fearful of our own servants. There was not a nobleman who did not take that backward glance when deciding to fervidly speak his mind. “Yet you took the oath. As did we all.”
“To save our lives, my dear. But I do not like this secular meddling in divine affairs. It has the off taste of meat left too long in the sun.”
“Why do you gaze out the window?”
“I am looking at nothing,” I confessed. “Except today. Pilgrims.”
“They go to the abbey to revere the relics. They do not think they will be there tomorrow.”
“I have never seen this many pilgrims along the road. Even during plague times.”
“These are plague times,” she said quietly. She moved to the casement, touching the glass delicately with her long fingers, the white ruffles of her sleeve falling past her wrist. “You have never been a religious man, Thomas. Why is it so important to you now?”
I chuckled and moved to stand behind her, wrapping my arms affectionately about her enlarging waist. “Age, Ursula. I am getting old. And when a man gets old he begins to think about greater things than himself.”
“Your soul, Thomas? I thought you encased it for safekeeping long ago in a chest, for seldom did you take it out to amuse yourself with it.”
“I take my soul very seriously, indeed,” I said, my voice muffled by her headdress’ veil. “And…my honor.”
If a man could not speak his mind—nay, even think in his mind a private thought—then there was little honor to be gained by being at court. With Ursula heavy with a babe, I was excused. But I did fear, though I said nothing to Ursula. In the past, I dueled, I fought in battles, I looked honorable death in the face, but now I feared. I feared men like Cromwell, the likes of which were not fit to wipe the dung from my shoes. That I—a Giffard—should fear his like! Take Breath and Pull Strong? It would take more than a steady hand and a long bow to do the work in this realm that needed the doing.
My hand reached to my doublet and fondled that pendant that lay beneath it. I took to wearing a crucifix. I felt, in these times, I needed it close to my skin.
“Perhaps you, too, should go to the abbey,” she said, picking up her sewing from where she left it on the casement. “Ease your soul on the veneration of a martyr’s bones.”
“Most likely they are the bones of a rabbit.” I smoothed my doublet over the cross, thinking of relics and of waste. “I know too many places encasing wax blood and pig’s skin for saint’s flesh.”
“Oh. You do not like this trafficking in saint’s wares? You sound very like Cromwell and his ilk.”
“Foolish, greedy men take coin from the innocent and naïve for one look at these relics. A bishop will tell you it does no harm to the people, but I say it wrongs them terribly.”
“Do you not believe in relics, Thomas?”
“I believe in few of them.”
“There is the old saw that if you took every piece of the true cross encased in reliquaries it would build an army of crosses.”
“So it is said.”
“And yet I myself have seen a splinter of the cross…” Her voice changed, softened, and I turned to look at her. “I was very moved by it. I shall never forget it, in fact. I prayed when I saw it, Thomas. I prayed with a fervency I have seldom possessed. I gave myself to God, dedicated my works to Him, however feeble they may be, through the sight of that single object. If it were not the cross of our Lord, it might as well have been.”
I bent toward her, touching her cheek with the tips of my fingers. “A sobering statement,” I said softly. “Full of all my own arguments.” Straightening, I happened to glance to the window again, and noted a rider kicking up mud along the path, scattering the pilgrims as he rode. Soon it was apparent that he was wont for our gates. I thought I recognized the sodden colors, but he was soon hidden behind the hedges and trees. My pulse hammered at what this visitation might mean, for surely this was a rider from court.
We were told George Throckmorton arrived and we received him at once.
“Dear George!” cried Ursula, rushing to greet him. She kissed her brother upon the cheek, and he stretched his arms to look at her.
“So it is true. You are with child again.” He smiled up at me. “Did I not say this would be a good match?”
I nodded. “And I am ever grateful for your prodding on the subject,” I answered. He continued to smile at his sister until his thoughts intruded on his features, which were spattered with mud from his ride.
“My manners,” I said, gesturing to a servant to bring wine and a bowl for him to wash himself. I tried to make light of weighty matters, for I sensed this was no social call. “George, please sit. Groom yourself, if you will.”
He first washed his face and dried it quickly with the towel before gratefully accepting the wine. Sitting back, he appeared agitated as the servant hovered.
“Joseph,” I said to the servant, “you may withdraw. Leave the jug.”
George watched Joseph depart and spoke only when the door was firmly shut and an interval passed between the last click and the faint footsteps of Joseph’s egression. “I have news, Thomas,” he said sitting forward. He cupped the goblet’s bowl between his hands, fingers curled and anxious. “Cromwell is sending his commissioners to the abbeys, forcing the religious to take the oath of succession.”
“What nonsense is this, George? Is he insane?”
“Husband!” Ursula clutched my arm, but I ignored her. Let the damned servants hear me! Let them know what their king is doing.
“It is already happening. Most are taking the oath, but those who have refused…”
“What, George?” she asked. “Who have refused?”
“Monks. Priests. They are being burned for treason.”
Ursula put a pale hand to her mouth and leaned against the wall. “Monks and priests?” she whispered. “What harm are they to the kingdom?”
George turned to look at her, his long, red-gold beard almost a part of his jerkin’s breast. “Anyone who does not swear to the invalidity of the king’s marriage with Queen Catherine—I mean, the Princess Dowager—must be made an example of. Even be they monks and priests, for they are becoming the most dangerous of all to King Henry. Any who are under the auspices of the pope—” He closed his eyes in frustration. “I mean the bishop of Rome—are His Majesty’s greatest foes. It is this influence the king fears. If priests bark from the pulpit about adultery and blasphemy, he cannot stand against it.”
“Then why do not more of them do so, George?”
“Because, my dear sister, they are being imprisoned for so doing, and then executed. It is a stony path to follow, opposing the king to side with the bishop of Rome.”
I scowled. To hear, in my own home, that a brother-in-law of mine must correct himself on matters provoking the king’s anxiety... “The pope,” I said boldly, “found for Queen Catherine in her suit. Little good it does her now. And little good the king’s hurried marriage to that Bullen woman did him when she produced another girl.”
George took a quick gulp of his wine while staring at me with his olive eyes. “It is all a tailless cat chasing its tail. Thomas More himself was imprisoned because of it,” he said to Ursula, “because he would not take the oath and would not say why.”
I slapped my thigh. �
�A man’s conscience again! Can a man not follow God’s law without fear of prison or worse?”
“The king is the supreme head of the church in England. If he wants an oath he will get his oath.”
“Even from poor clerics,” I rasped.
“Especially from poor clerics.”
“Even from nuns,” Ursula said softly.
I stared at her. I did not realize it until she said it, but they, too, were in danger. Involuntarily, my lips mouthed, “Isabella.”
I heard George’s voice vaguely through my clouded thoughts. “I tell you, Thomas, I do not know my own countrymen any longer. And where court was once merry, it reeks of fear and discontent. Brave men cower when Cromwell walks the halls. They fear him. Faith! I admit I fear him, too! What’s to be done?”
“What is there to do?” I muttered behind my hand. I smoothed down my mustache and worried at my beard.
“There is talk…”
“Speak not of treasonous talk, George. Not in my house. Would you widow your sister?”
“I am loyal to the king. But I am not loyal to his minions who teach him heresy.”
“Cromwell.”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “He has too many spies. No. I can be patient. Like Wolsey, he will hang himself by missteps and vanity.”
“Can we wait that long?”
“It may not be all that long.”
“But these oaths—”
“—must be taken.” Yet even so, I imagined Isabella in all her boldness standing up to these men and leading her sisters to certain doom.
A servant arrived with a tray of meats and dried fruit, and George ate gratefully while Ursula ministered to him. I stood again at the window, listening to their talk with half an ear. My mind was on monasteries and just how quickly I could get myself to Blackladies.
It was not long until George obliged me by retiring for an afternoon rest. Ursula watched me steadily as I called for my horse to be readied.
“Where do you go, husband?”
“Brewood. I have business there.”
Ursula moved closer and measured me. “Thomas, I have never asked you. I have respected and honored you as my husband and my lord. But today—especially today when so much is in turmoil—I must risk your wrath. I have wondered these many years what it is that so intrigues you in Brewood.”
I stiffened. I was no adulterer, though it was true that I sinned in my heart for another. “I have told you before. My father and I are patrons to Blackladies. It is only a small priory, and very poor.”
“Priory.” She strode away from the window, and as gracefully as her girth would allow, sat upon a chair. The gown draped about her like furling crests of waves. It engulfed her being with their deep, raven reflections. She clutched her sewing in the white fist of one hand, its needle dangling from a crimson thread. “I have heard the rumors, but I was loath to believe them; that you spent your time at the priory…because of the prioress.”
My gaze grew steady upon her. “Yes, madam. It is true. We were childhood friends, you see. She was the daughter of a yeoman farmer near our lands.”
She settled back, a matronly smile on her face. “I see. You go to warn them, then. Go, Thomas. Do warn them.” Here her smile dispersed. “Save them, if you can.”
My heart grew within me, and I knelt to her, taking her hand and pressing a lover’s kiss upon it. She could never know how grateful I was for her confidence and her concern. I also knew then, that I was unworthy of such a wife.
I left Stretton at breakneck speed without thinking further of so estimable a wife…God forgive me. I thought only of nuns, of one in particular. Horse and rider clattered over the roads until the church spire of Brewood appeared above the black nettles of naked trees. I skirted the town and tore along the Ladies Brook to the outer walls of Blackladies, its stone and timber not as impenetrable as the nuns would think. There are so many chinks in a stone wall, after all, so many places where a foundation can be worn away without the owner’s knowledge, that a sudden storm could loosen it, toppling the whole affair.
I trotted along the vine-draped wall, its ivy browned from an early frost. Absently I rubbed the stallion’s velvety black neck, his piquant odor rising as his muscles rippled. We came to a low spot along the wall and I gazed outward to Blackladies’ fields. The barley and wheat in all but one field was harvested down to stubble. Goats moved along the sloping fields, nibbling their share of the crop. The last of the wheat in a far field was golden, running up the slopes in blurred amber like a fire rushing a hill. Rooks bedeviled the seed heads and, like the rooks, the nuns in their black habits walked the fields along with the fieldworkers, waving distractedly at the vandalizing birds. Some of the servants brandished scythes and smote the stalks as if sending the Devil himself back to Hell.
There she was, standing near the center of the empty field, a black tower of a creature among the milling gray bodies of muddy goats. The sun wore on the landscape today, gilding the brown-leafed thickets, but the air was still cold.
Another nun—I could not tell which—stood at the far end of the field with an older man, a crook in his hand. Three motley goatherds.
I spurred the stallion and he cleared the wall before we soberly galloped up to her. She noticed my arrival in a spatter of straw-speckled mud. Her astonishment would have been charming if there had been time to consider it. But there was no time. I slid unsteadily from my horse, tossing the reins behind me.
“I need to speak with you. Now.”
She did not question me as I took her by the arm. I could not even excuse myself for roughly handling her, but neither could we stay within view of the others, for they had noticed my inauspicious arrival. Instead, I led her back through the fields to the gate, and under its hiding shade. I stopped and glared at her, yet still she waited for whatever dread thing I wished to announce. If I could only trust her to be obedient, I would have nothing to fear. But I knew her superiors would not instruct her in this.
“It is important I talk with you about this, Isabella. Very soon, the king’s commissioners will come and make you swear an oath.”
“I know, Thomas. Though I know not the nature of this oath. What is it exactly? I knew you would know.” Her face was white, drained of even the faint blue veins that oft smudged her lids. A sprig of straw clung to her veil, waving gently with each of my desperate breaths.
“Earlier this month, Parliament passed the Act of Succession. In it are several points. Point one, that the heirs of the king and Queen Anne are lawful. Two, that the marriage between His Majesty and the Princess Dowager—”
“Queen Catherine!”
“The Princess Dowager! You must now call her that. That the marriage between His Majesty and the Princess Dowager was never valid and that the issue from that marriage is a bastard.”
“Oh Thomas! How can I?”
“There is more. Three, that any foreign authority, prince or potentate, may not exercise any authority over those subjects in this realm.” I let the last stew in her, watching for understanding to bud upon her face. When it did at last, I clutched her arms, silencing her protests. “You must take this oath, Isabella. There can be no nonsense about it.”
“I certainly will not! You are asking me to swear that I shall no longer be obedient to the pope—”
“The bishop of Rome,” I corrected.
“That I shall no longer be obedient to the pope!” she sneered. “And that the poor Princess Mary is to be called a bastard by the very same subjects who lauded her as heir to the throne!”
“That is precisely what I am telling you to do.”
“I will write to the bishop at once. He can counsel us. He can speak to the king…”
I released her and moved to lean against the arch. The stone warmed in the burnishing sun, invoking an earthy aroma of clay and of meadows long dead. My gaze fell to the trees edging the borders of Blackladies, to its surrounding low sloping hills meandering toward the sleepy vi
llage, a village innocent of courtly ways, of such schemes plodding inescapably closer.
“Do you not smell that in the wind, Isabella? It is the stench of unprincipled men and clerics, the offal of Englishmen drinking from the cup of Luther.”
“But, Thomas. I do not understand.”
“Do you think the king will stop with this? He no longer fears the pope. Why should he? He is the anointed of God. Defender of the Faith…and now supreme head of the Church in England. King Hal is now our pope and he is looking long and hard at these monasteries and at the monks and nuns within them. If Hal is the pope, why do you then swear your loyalty to a distant monarch? If he is to have his religion as he desires it, you need be his servants. Smell the wind, Isabella, and see which way it blows. It blows away from the direction of Rome.”
“Even so. I cannot say this oath.”
My Isabella, strong and determined. Yes, she could have run the Giffard estates without suffering any mischief. She could have governed with an iron hand but been beloved by all beneath her, for she possessed the talent of winning hearts to her reasoning. But now was not the time for such vainglory. Now was the time for submission. Christ’s blood! How I wish she was my wife and bound to obedience to me! “You must. It is treason to disobey.”
“But an oath must be taken in conscience. We can choose not to take it.”
“Like Thomas More? He languishes in prison even now for refusing to say such an oath, or for saying why he refused. Even his lawyer’s clever mind could not find the way to save himself. This is no game, Isabella. Do you know what it is to die a traitor’s death? Do you? A nobleman is allowed decapitation, though his head is mounted on a pike so that the ravens may peck out the traitor’s eyes and then his traitorous tongue—”
She held her hand up, her cheek even paler. “Stop…”
“But not for you, Isabella. It would be fire for you. Burning hot like the flames of Hell, to purge you, your skin peeling off, sizzling up like a pig’s!”
Roses in the Tempest Page 20